THE

LIBERTARIAN

ENTERPRISE

The Slave Psychosis

Face scanning technology has already been installed at domestic
airports and major sporting events and the state driver's license
systems are well on their way to creating a de facto national
identification card. We have slid all the way down the slippery slope
and gone over the greased cliff.

But, many people welcome, indeed applaud, each new intrusion against
their privacy because "such increased safety procedures are necessary
in the New World created on September 11th". The most popular tactic
employed by liberty minded individuals in the face of each such
intrusion is and has been to inform the populous that this or that
new measure could and probably will lead to abuses and a less free
society. Unfortunately, this most popular tactic serves to enrage
many into spasms of name calling.

Why? The Slave Psychosis.

The Slave Psychosis is a mental disorder characterized by the
delusional belief that the more autonomy you surrender to a group of
people with guns and badges the safer you are, because there are
people out there with guns without badges that may want to hurt you.

The Slave Psychosis appears in those who repeatedly employ the
defense mechanism of rationalization to deal with the anger
accompanying the infringement of their autonomy.

The process starts the first time an individual's rights are
infringed by a governmental agent. It could have been the first time
a governmental agent took their money, violated their privacy, made
idiotic demands of them, etc. It is a natural human reaction to be
upset, even enraged, at such procedures. However, those who developed
the Slave Psychosis temporarily suppressed their anger, because it
would do no good to express it. Indeed, expressing it could cause
problems. For instance, a security supervisor with a grade school
education could threaten to arrest you and search your bags for
calling her and her cohorts Nazis.

After that first encounter, the individual allowed himself to relive
his anger; his anger about the way he was treated and the way he
responded. "I should have refused. I should have stopped them. I
should have done something." Those who developed the disorder chose
to justify their inaction by justifying the actions of those who
aggressed against them.

"It was O.K. that I had to sell the family farm that my
great-grandfather started, because the government needs tax money. It
was O.K. that my wife and daughter were felt up by governmental
flunkies, because I don't want the terrorists to win."

After repeatedly making such justifications, the afflicted began to
feel guilty, or worse yet selfish, for being upset in the first
place. They repress their anger from ever surfacing, eventually
viewing governmental transgressions against them as the necessary
inconveniences which accompany life in a free society.
Militarized security checkpoints, confiscatory tax policies,
burdensome regulations are inconvenient, but good.

Thus, if a self-respecting freedom loving person complains that his
rights were violated at a security checkpoint, that he is paying too
much in taxes, that he has to fill out a mountain of senseless
paperwork; he is whining.

"Hey, we all have to go through this inconvenience. Deal with it. Do
you think you are special? We need to give the good people invading
our privacy, taking our money, and regulating nearly every aspect of
our lives whatever tools they need to protect us from the bad guys.
After all, if it means more security, what is one more
inconvenience?"

This is why those afflicted with the Slave Psychosis do not respond
to the typical method of persuasion employed by liberty minded
individuals. "After all, the good guys will not misuse this power.
They are not the Nazis, don't be absurd." By the way this disorder
exists almost solely in the minds of those who drastically
misunderstand or who are completely ignorant of historical lessons.
So, informing them that the Nazis were quite popular in Germany will
also be ineffective.

This particular mental disorder has at its genesis a deep
self-hatred. These victims are subconsciously upset about the way
they handled their first and subsequent meetings with tyrannical
authority. Those who still resist, those who are still offended each
time their rights are infringed, those who have not been conditioned
into the slave psychosis remind the afflicted that some were and are
stronger than they.

The afflicted consciously categorize these independent souls as
unreasonable, selfish, and uncivilized. However, at a subconscious
level, the afflicted are envious of those who still resist. Aren't
all the movie heroes independent souls who, rather than succumbing to
external forces, abide their consciences?

Conforming the afflicted into self respecting individuals who demand
their freedom is something of a task. However, it is an achievable
one. To some extent it depends upon this bifurcated love/hate
relationship they have with heroes.

This conformation process will be the subject of my next article.

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